The Three of Us: A Code Geass Christmas Fic
by J Plash
Summary: “They don't celebrate Christmas in Japan, remember, Nunnally? So we'll just have to have Christmas here with the three of us.” Their one peaceful Xmas together wasn't perfect...but at least they weren't alone. Xmas fluff, child Lelouch and Suzaku pre-war.


A/N: Four hours ago, I realized it was Christmas Eve and I hadn't written a single piece of Christmas fic. Given that I've posted Christmas fic on my blog every year since 2001, I thought it would be a great pity to miss this year. So I sat down in front of the carols with my trusty laptop, and wrote this Code Geass Christmas one-shot, from a time when Lelouch, Suzaku and Nunnaly were 'just the three of us'. They only got one peaceful Christmas together, and things weren't perfect. But before the war, eight years before Zero was born, they could still smile, together, on Christmas morning. I hope you enjoy, and Merry Christmas! :D Please review! ;D

(oh, and for the record, I realise that there's plenty of xmas in real Japan...but I think that in Suzaku's Japan, the year before the breakout of war, that might be different. Given that Christmas is a specifically Britannian holiday, and we know Britannia was absolutely loathed in Japan at this point. I'd imagine celebrating xmas would be about as popular in 2009 a.t.b. Japan as marching around the streets with a Britannian flag :P Especially for two little political hostages who are already not Tokyo's most beloved residents. Lucky they've got Suzaku there to look out for them ;D).

* * *

The Three of Us

It was five o'clock pm on December the fifth, in the year 2009 a.t.b., and newly-ten-year-old Lelouch was _exhausted. _Suzaku gigggled as his one-and-only real friend slumped further back against the step of the tiny white 'cottage'. It was cold out, especially now the sun was almost down, but Nunnally was inside brushing her hair, and Suzaku and Lelouch didn't mind the cold, if they got to watch the stars come out. Lelouch yawned widely, and made a futile attempt to cover it up. Suzaku threw a pebble at him. "You can't fall asleep yet. Your birthday's not over."

Lelouch tried to throw one back, huge eyes narrowed, a scowl on his tiny face, and missed by a good metre. "It might as well be. Nunnally's probably tired, and you'll have to go back to the house soon."

Suzaku shook his head. "We have to take down all the decorations yet. You can't reach half of them without me. I'd like to see you get up into the rafters."

Lelouch hmphed loudly. "The rafters will probably fall down if you climb up there again, they're all rotten. We'll leave the decorations up for Christmas." The little prince shut his eyes just in time to miss the look on Suzaku's face. "Back home...the Christmas decorations always went up the day after my birthday." He smiled faintly, eyes still closed, and Suzaku shuffled awkwardly. "Mother always had the garden filled with tiny lights. Nunnally...Nunnally thought they were fairies, when she was three or four."

The decorations they'd managed—well, mainly Suzaku had managed, since Lelouch had neither a great many resources nor the ability to swing around in the rafters—here in the cottage for Lelouch's birthday were significantly less spectacular than the illumination of the Aries garden thousands of miles away. Suzaku had obtained a mass of fabric scraps and offcuts from somewhere, probably the maids, and there were slightly mismatched bows up the stair rails and on the ladder and the balcony, where Lelouch had tied them, and more tied in slightly scruffier knots up in the ceiling where Suzaku had climbed the day before, while Lelouch attempted to direct (and was ignored) from below.

Lelouch blushed and looked at his feet as he opened his eyes. "Well, at least she's not missing much."

Suzaku bit his lip—he'd never felt this uncertain about things before stupid, sissy Lelouch showed up with his stupid, silly airs and graces to be sensitive about _everything_...but he did. "Um...Lelouch..."

"Yes?"

Lelouch looked homesick. Lelouch looked...small. Well, he was small, small and weak and touchy and sulky and...Suzaku shifted again and thought maybe he could just leave it, at least for tonight. Of course Lelouch was homesick. It was his first birthday in a foreign country, his first birthday since his mother had been killed and his father—they both agreed that the Britannian emperor was downright _evil—_had shipped him off and away. Suzaku had spent all day trying to distract Lelouch from all that, but now, with Nunnally inside and the sun going down...and Suzaku really didn't want to make things worse. But sometimes Lelouch just wasn't good at seeing the obvious. He turned around to face his worn out companion, and summoned up all his little ability to be tactful. "Well, Lelouch...um...I...don't think that's such a good idea."

Lelouch raised an eyebrow—how did he manage to look annoyingly haughty even when he was half-asleep? "What are you talking about, Suzaku?"

Suzaku squirmed and sat up a little straighter. "Uh...Christmas...that's...a Britannian holiday, Lelouch..."

Lelouch didn't say anything.

Suzaku tried again. "I don't care if you want to do your stupid holidays, but...well...it might not be a good idea. With, well...everyone's sort of...touchy about Brit stuff...you know...people might get mad. If anyone noticed. Just..." Why wouldn't he answer? Stupid Lelouch. Suzaku concluded more harshly than he'd intended to...the idiot was just so _frustrating_. "Just don't. You attract enough attention to you and Nunnally already."

But the ten-year-old wasn't even looking at him any more. Suzaku tried really hard not to get mad—Lelouch had given him a lot of practice with that over the last six months. "Hey. Are you even listening?"

Lelouch's eyes were fixed somewhere out in the distance, above the horizon, where the sun had disappeared beyond the arc of the sky, where pink hovered in a band below the inky blue, and stars were just beginning to sprout, faint against the city lights. "Don't say anything to Nunnally."

It took Suzaku a moment to understand—why couldn't Lelouch talk like a normal person?—and by the time he did, Lelouch's eyes were back with him.

It was strangely difficult to keep his composure under that gaze, harder than a ten-year-old's should be. Suzaku nodded quickly and tried not to feel awkward. "Um...yeah, okay. But...you have to tell her not to say anything to anyone. We'll tell her there are lights and stuff in the cottage if you want, but...you have to make sure she doesn't say anything. I just...I just don't want you to get in trouble. Okay?"

Lelouch waved off his concern, and used one hand on the ground to push himself up to his rather diminutive height. "I'll talk to her. We should start taking down all the mess, then."

After a moment, Suzaku stood too. Mess, now? Well, at least he'd tried. And it had been a good day. He'd tried really hard to give Lelouch a good birthday, and it hadn't been too bad, mostly. Not as good as when _he'd_ turned nine in July, but...well, that was sort of to be expected. Still. He reached out and grabbed Lelouch's shoulder as he turned to go inside. "Um...Nunnally's still in there."

Lelouch looked at him like he was a complete idiot. "Nunnally _lives_ in there, Suzaku. She's not going anywhere."

Suzaku glared. "I know that. I mean...maybe we don't have to take them down tonight. Like you said…the rafters are kind of rotten. We should probably wait 'til it's light. And...yeah."

For a moment, Lelouch just looked at him with those narrowed, glowing—burning—violet eyes, then at his feet, then back at the closed door, then back at the now dark sky. And then Suzaku tugged on his shoulder again, and wordlessly, Lelouch turned back around, back to the sky, huge from here atop the hill, and tugged Suzaku's hand off his shoulder, but didn't let it go.

It was cold out, especially now the stars were the only light, twinkling frostily from a million miles away, even further than the Aries garden and the family Lelouch had known and the life he'd left behind. But here, now...well, Suzaku thought, at least Lelouch wasn't out here alone. And winter was always warmer when you held hands.

Lelouch's voice was barely a murmur in the still air. "You'll have to go back up soon. We'll be in trouble if they have to send down from the house."

Suzaku nodded, and didn't move. Lelouch wasn't nine anymore, and soon, he wouldn't be either. Only a few more years and they'd be teenagers. Things just seemed to move so fast. Would they still be like this when they were nineteen? It seemed like such a long way off. Nineteen was all grown up, and almost ten whole years...they'd both heard the whispers in the halls up at the house, that they'd be lucky to last another year without a war.

Lelouch wasn't thinking that far ahead, at least not right now. The stars twinkled in the sky like a million distant fairies, and he wondered if Euphy was enjoying the Christmas lights. She'd get new dresses and ostentatious jewels for Christmas, like she and Nunnally always had, and Lelouch didn't know what he could find for Nunnally this year. He'd been teaching himself to sew, and to cook, and he promised himself that one day before long he'd be able to make beautiful clothes for Nunnally, not just keep the few that they had relatively neat. But for now…Suzaku would help him, like he always did. And he'd tell Nunnally there were lights in the rafters—Suzaku would climb up there tomorrow to take down the knots of fabric, and they'd tell Nunnally he was putting up Christmas lights then. Just one more little white lie. Just for Christmas. Just for now.

Suzaku sighed, and used his free hand to prod at the corners of Lelouch's frown, swinging their linked fingers together. "Happy birthday, Lelouch," he whispered.

And quietly, shivering a little in the cold, Lelouch almost smiled.

***

December 25th dawned bright, clear, and freezing, and Suzaku let a maid wrap him in five different layers before he set out into the frost. The grass was sparkling with it, and his shoes and the hem of his blanketed robe were sodden by the time he reached the little white sort-of-cottage. It was still very early, much earlier than he would usually come here—the sun was still low in the morning sky, and blindingly white. He wrapped his layers closer around his tiny body and pressed his ear to the door that didn't creak anymore since he and Lelouch had fixed it.

"Has it snowed, brother?" Nunnally's voice was shrill, and Suzaku could hear her smiling. He crossed his fingers and hoped hard that Lelouch would have the sense not to lie—they'd have to keep Nunnally inside all day if they were convincing her it had snowed.

"Not quite." Lelouch was smiling too, and Suzaku released the breath he'd been holding. "There's a good frost though. The grass is...whitish. It definitely looks Christmassy."

White was kind of exaggerating. But that was believable, at least.

Nunnally giggled. "You should turn on the Christmas lights! It probably won't sparkle like snow, but it would still be pretty with frost."

"That's a good idea. I'll...I'll do that now, Nunnally..."

Lelouch's voice didn't so much as shake when he lied to Nunnally now.

Suzaku could hear his friend's footsteps heading upstairs to where the lights were supposedly located, and Suzaku took that as his cue to enter—no point waiting 'til Lelouch was all the way up. He straightened, cleared his throat and knocked loudly, mittens muffling the sound. "Lelouch? Nunnally?"

The response was instantaneous. "Brother! Suzaku's here!"

Suzaku bit his lip so he didn't laugh too loudly—Lelouch got annoyed if he laughed at Nunnally.

It took a minute for the little prince to reach the door—Suzaku could hear him stumbling down the stairs. "Suzaku?" Crossing the room, picking his way clumsily around the clutter. "What are you doing here this early?" And the door swung open.

Suzaku took a deep breath. "Uh...Merry Christmas."

Lelouch blinked.

Lelouch stared.

And then Lelouch bent almost in half, and laughed.

"Brother? Suzaku?"

Suzaku grinned as he pushed past Lelouch, who almost tripped and tried to glare, though it came out more like a grimace, before pulling the door shut behind them. "Merry Christmas, Nunnally."

"Merry Christmas, Suzaku!"

Lelouch shook his head slowly, eyes wide with something not-quite disbelief. "What are you doing here?"

Suzaku stood his ground. "Well, today's Christmas, isn't it?"

Nunnally wasn't in her wheelchair yet, but she'd pushed herself up to sitting, a mountain of blankets wrapped around her tight—the heating in here was fairly limited, though they'd at least managed to seal up most of the holes and cracks so what they had didn't escape. "Isn't your dad up yet, Suzaku? Is Kaguya coming over today?"

Suzaku threw Lelouch his standard 'help me' look—it was always dangerous to say anything to Nunnally without having Lelouch approve it first.

Lelouch clamped a hand unceremoniously over Suzaku's mouth. "They don't celebrate Christmas in Japan, remember, Nunnally?" Lelouch had a special voice that he only ever used for Nunnally, and Suzaku personally thought it sounded kind of stupid, but who was he to comment? "So we'll just have to have Christmas here with the...the three of us."

The three of us. Lelouch's eyes met Suzaku's almost guiltily as he included the Japanese boy in the party, and Suzaku nodded firmly…and pulled Lelouch's hand off his mouth.

Nunnally smiled gently. "Thank you for coming and having Christmas with us, Suzaku."

It wasn't perfect. There were no gifts—Suzaku hadn't wanted to risk trouble—and Nunnally was the only one who thought there were lights or baubles. But the chill in here without proper heating wasn't so bad when they were holding hands, and Lelouch didn't shiver quite so badly when Suzaku shrugged off his two outermost layers and buried the abandoned prince in them despite his indignant—silently indignant, for Nunnally's benefit—protests.

No, it wasn't perfect. But here, now, with sunlight streaming bright through the one high window, and the two old electric heaters Suzaku had managed to dig out of storage, and plenty of blankets to go around...it could be worse. Suzaku bit his lip and made sure he kept smiling as he held Lelouch's gaze. Somewhere in the trees outside, a brave bird chirped a few notes despite the chill. Lelouch squeezed Suzaku's hand tighter, and immediately pretended he hadn't. He wasn't quite smiling, not yet. But it was Christmas Day. And thousands of miles from home, with everything lost, and a million reasons to give up...at least he wasn't alone. He swallowed thickly, and scolded himself that it was below him to almost think of crying. "Merry Christmas, Suzaku," he murmured.

It was 8am on December 25th, 2009 a.t.b.. It was Christmas morning. War was less than a year away, and nothing was quite right. But in a little white storehouse with insufficient heating on the grounds of the Kururugi shrine in Tokyo, Japan, just for a moment...Nunnally, Lelouch and Suzaku were all smiling, together. Just the three of them.

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A/N: I hope you enjoyed it! Somewhat hastily edited, due to my only starting it four hours ago and wanting it up for Christmas :P Hope it was okay though! Please review and let me know what you thought :-)

Merry Christmas everyone!


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